How Mood Swings helped me Open my Mind
My life changed the day I heard about essential oils. Yes, I know that was definitely dramatic. I just needed to put it out there because on a certain day, unbeknownst to me at the time, everything changed.
Here is how it started. My husband invited a few people over for a cookout. These were people he had been working with and had spent a lot of time with in recent months. I had heard about them and was looking forward to meeting them. I ended up sitting next to one of the women and somehow we started talking about hot flashes. Right? How random is it that you are sitting next to a perfect stranger and that is what you talk about? I had been taking hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for several years. (Sorry if this is TMI but it is relevant to the story.) I was now in the beginning stages of what I call my wellness journey. Stories of the danger of being on HRT for an extended period of time had made their way into my awareness (and I try to guard my awareness of anything I don’t want to hear as much as possible.)
At the time of this cookout, I had tried several times to stop taking the HRT. Each time I got to the point of being at the lowest possible dose, the hot flashes and crazy menopause woman would reappear. You know the one, prone to bursting into tears or fits of rage within moments of each other. Mood swings are exhausting aren’t they? At any rate, while my husband was concerned for my health, I think he was also concerned about his own. I teased him that he was secretly getting my prescription refilled.
I was certainly open to new ideas at this point in my life. The woman started telling me about these things called essential oils. Seriously, I had never heard of them. I was ready to try just about anything. My sister joked at one point during her recovery from back surgery that she was ready to try a potion with eye of newt and toe of frog, and stand on one leg at midnight if she could find relief. (We took her to acupuncture instead.) We’ve all been there, right? So I agreed to a short term experiment. I would again begin reducing the prescription HRT and at the same time add this essential oil blend she had. I’m sure my husband was nervous but he never said so. Remember I said life changing? Well, I was able to go off of the prescription! I was so excited and stunned at this “miracle”, that I began researching. If they could help me with this, what else could they do?
The research led me to other natural health alternatives and led me to the next step of my wellness journey. Now I use essential oils everyday for well just about everything. Friends ask me what can they do for a headache or stress or allergies, I hand them one of my oils (and tell them yoga will help too). It felt like a whole new world opened up. Amazing how we get stuck in patterns and make judgments about things and never try stuff! I love how this unfolded for me. It led me to open my mind about health and wellness, and life in general. If you haven’t already, I hope you have one of these experiences. If you have, I would love to hear about it.